


222

by greenkangaroo, signifying_nothing



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:20:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 8,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28351548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenkangaroo/pseuds/greenkangaroo, https://archiveofourown.org/users/signifying_nothing/pseuds/signifying_nothing
Summary: The Sole Survivor, in his bewildered fugue, takes a turn down a hallway- and suddenly he's not sole anymore. A self indulgent romp through fallout 4 with the Survivors two siblings play, and all the delightful chaos which occurs therein.
Comments: 34
Kudos: 11





	1. so your ac unit dumped you and you missed the apocalypse

**Author's Note:**

> My sibcreature introduced me to fallout 4 in this the year of Satan 2020. The extreme difference in how we played led to some hilarious half conversations which grew into this. There is no plan. There is no plot. There are only hammers and bullets.

It could have gone differently, is the thing. 

Pip McElmot could have not gone down the ancillary hallway. He could have ignored the one terminal still functioning. He could have looked at the single running cryopod beside his own, a tertiary project of another researcher, and just _left._

He could have killed the occupant inside. Turned off the life support and let him suffocate without ever knowing he was dying at all. He could have popped the top and beaten the half-frozen man to death, letting grief and rage and the lack of a decent scoped weapon guide his hands. 

Pip's first choice in a world he no longer recognized could have been death. If he weren't so pragmatic, perhaps it would have been.

It could have gone that way. 

It does not. 

Pip finds the cryopod. He reads the terminal entries, written by a vault tec scientist of more than questionable ethics who had wanted to, quote, 'keep this one close.' 

He finds a name, and that name is as painfully ridiculous as his own. It has a rank attached and the rank gives context. 

Pip McElmot has seen this man before. 

He knows him only peripherally, quick glances at the Veteran's hall, a nod of two diametrically opposed and balancing forces. Go army. Ooh-ra. 

So Pip gathers the last shreds of prenuke decency and he hits the button. The cryopod unfreezes and a man who towers over him drops to the floor, coughing and cussing up a storm. 

"Are we fuckin' dead?" Goliath Dawson Shanders asks. 

"Not yet," Peregrine Theodore McElmot says. 

"Well, hail mary mother. I can't feel my dick." 

Pip laughs and Vault 111 swallows it. 

It happens like this: a small, quiet man with eyes like dark woods. A big, grinning man with eyes pale as a drowned corpse. A story. A missing child. A dead world. 

A living one, just outside their tomb. 

"And on the third day he shall rise," GD says, opening his arms to the watery sunlight and the ruin beyond. Pip smiles, and follows.


	2. a sniper and a brawler walk into a deathclaw

"I got," GD says, "fuckin QUESTIONS about what passes for cherry in this shit for brick future." 

"Will it run?" Pip asks. He's adjusting his sights again. Codsworth had done his best but two hundred and ten years of dust and rad fallout would fuck the best of rifles The rangers had not let Pip go home with the best of rifles. 

"Oh it'll run," GD says, hammering the fusion core from the basement into its slot. "Like my old man after a saturday night. Not long and not WELL." 

"Doesn't have to run well. Just has to scare some morons." 

Pip hadn't wanted to come to Concord. The moment he'd heard about Diamond City from the lady with the two headed cow, he'd been determined to go there. Codsworth had been insistent though and as GD had pointed out, a trial run with the world's oldest sniper rifle was probably in order. 

Which had gotten them into THIS mess. 

"It'll do that," GD mutters. He twists the valve and swings limberly in. "Thank mother mary the fuckin HUD still works..cherry my ass." 

"Shut up and get the minigun," Pip orders. "I'll cover you from up here." 

"Yeah, yeah," GD says, voice muffled by the T45's heavy helmet. "Been sitting up here for two hundred years if the trigger don't lock up it'll be a certified goddamn miracle..." 

The bigger man marches up into the remains of the vertibird and rips the minigun from its stand with a casual violence that Pip almost finds nostalgic. Someone down below yells a challenge. 

Pip watches GD heft the gun and stride forward. When he hits the edge of the roof the former infantry corporal leaps with no hesitation, letting out a garbled whoop that is puncutated by the satisfying sound of two hundred and fifty pounds of steel and hydraulics impacting the pavement. 

"COME ON YOU LITTLE FUCKS!" GD howls, and the fight is on. 

Pip drags the worktable down to make a nest. Its half assed but it works. He takes shots from the top and sides, targeting those who are fleeing GD's gratuitious spray. 

Its going okay. 

Well, even. 

Then the sewer at the end of the street explodes. 

What comes out takes Pip's breath away. This had been what the crazy old lady was talking about. This was death on legs. 

What's left of the raiders makes a decent dent in the thing before it tears the last guy into two literal pieces. 

Pip can hear GD laughing. So can the death lizard. It starts running and Pip starts firing. One shot plugs it in the shoulder and another skitters off its muzzle before it is on the power armor, knocking GD prone. 

Pip inhales slow, reloads. Eyes on the target. Eyes on the target. Eyes- 

The minigun whirrs slowly. The creature roars and leans over GD. 

Its middle explodes in a shower of blood and viscera as two thousand rounds a minute are pumped into its not at all well armored guts. 

There is a moment of absolute silence. Pip remembers this silence well. 

Then there is a clang as a t45 helmet hits the tarmac and GD shouts, "I fucking LOVE the future!" 

Pip sighs and heads back inside. Time for the Minutemen to move the hell out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are expecting game accurate anything you've come to the wrong fic, son.


	3. a percent of a quarter of a half of a nuclear michelin star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pip has opinions about post-fallout cuisine. GD just wants someone to pass the nukasalt.

"Okay but they can't be THAT bad." 

"GD. It is two hundred year old breakfast cereal, stored in cardboard and exposed to repeat radiation fallout." 

"I mean we had worse in the service." 

"Fucking did we? Did. We." 

"I'm gonna eat it." 

"NO YOU ARE NOT!" 

"Hey, Sturges. Bet you a cap I can eat these." 

"Sugar bombs? Sure, they're alright. They'll up your radation but what old world food doesn't? Nothing a good dose of radaway can't solve. Hey boss you alright? You look like you swallowed a bloatfly." 

\- 

"Come on everyone loves instamash." 

"TWO. HUNDRED. YEARS." 

"Two hundred and ten, sir." 

"Codsworth, you got anything that goes with instamash?" 

"I'd be more than happy to dust off the old cuisine holotapes, Mr. Shanders." 

"That's a good man." 

"I hate you so much." 

\- 

"Its the NORTHEAST! we don't even HAVE scorpions!" 

"We do now." 

"Fucking hell- what are you doing." 

"Butchering. At least I THINK that's what I'm doing. This isn't like a deer. You think the stinger's edible?" 

"We are not eating that." 

"Cheerio, where is your sense of adventure?" 

"Cheerio?!" 

"Yeah. Pip pip cheerio, god save the queen? You know I bet she's a fuckin ghoul now. She seems the type." 

"I hate you so much- put that down we are NOT EATING IT-" 

\- 

"Nan-ni shimasu-ka?" 

"Sure." 

"Oh you won't eat my lovingly prepared stingwing fillets but you'll trust the commie noodle bot?" 

"That's Japanese, GD." 

"My point stands." 

"Yes. I trust the commie noodle bot over your stingwing fillets." 

"You're doing the future wrong, Cheerio." 

"Yeah but at least my guts aren't."


	4. steel drivin' man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> GD finds his niche and he names it.

GD has nothing against guns, really. 

He's got a ten mil for the giant fuckoff future bugs, and a scoped rifle for distance combat- nowhere near as fancy as anything Pip carries, but its serviceable. He's got a double barrel shotgun for when the profanity has to get real personal and there's just so many things you can do with a frag grenade. 

Only all of these items, as useful and violent as they are, play second chair in the orchestra. People expect guns. They are fast and brutal and. 

And _boring._

And look, GD Shanders did not survive the end of the world as a popesicle (shut the FUCK UP, Pip) just to enact all the gleeful violence his pickled black heart desired in the most boring way possible, no! He had standards! 

So GD starts with a machete he finds in the wreckage of what once was Sanctuary Hills. Its got some rust and smells faintly of radiation but a few quick passes with a whetstone and there's an edge. 

Pip is annoyed but he sees the sense in it after they deal with their first raiders, camped under the power lines on the way to Abernathy farm. Raiders expect GD to have a gun. He's tall, he's broad, he's the picture of prewar health. 

Raiders want GD to have a gun. They want to feel good about being the ones to take him down, since they can't find Pip (they'll never find Pip.) They want a glorious standoff against a beautiful enemy who they can make ugly.

So when he doesn't have a gun, when they are met not with a hail of bullets but rather a smile that's just a touch too wide and eyes that are a shade too pale and a cheerful "hey, yo, what's up?" as a machete comes swinging out of the dark... 

Pip doesn't enjoy shooting only sitting ducks, but he'd be lying if he said it wasn't convenient. 

The machete does solid service. It is replaced, eventually, by a baseball bat. GD and Moe spend some time talking shop and next thing Pip knows there's barbed wire around the damn thing and it has buzzsaws attached. 

That's GD. He's handy like that. 

The baseball bat works better than the machete, because it is still a toy. Regardless of the colorful edits peddled in Diamond City, kids still play stickball. Therefore it is easy to follow GD's huge back with his scope and pick off the people on the edges as they try to reconcile children's games with the sheer amount of blood caking the bat just ripped from their fellow raider's skull. 

When GD finds the hammer, something clicks. 

Its a standard sledge. Three foot handle, twenty pound head. He pulls it out of the wreckage of Backstreet Apparel's grave of a sales floor. 

"You have got to be fucking kidding me," Pip says from the glass case by the door where he'd set up because someone has to be the voice of reason. 

GD just grins and hefts the hammer through the straps of his backpack. 

Like all relationships there is trial and error, an adjustment period. The hammer is slower to swing and wider to curve. Missing is fucking painful. GD picks out bullets and lets Pip call the shots more often while he heals. 

He sketches and he drafts and he redrafts. There's a lot of sleepless nights at the workbench, bonding with Sturges over bad beer and big plans. 

"What is its name?" Pip asks him, because Pip names all his guns. 

If anything this is a bigger question than what mods to make and GD finds himself put out that he doesn't have an answer. He considers and abandons a few possibilities. Curbstomp? No, infers a certain chain of events and there are barely any curbs in the post nuclear wasteland. Something unassuming, like Daisy? Fuck no, half the guys in GD's unit had named their fuckin' power armor Daisy, he'd rather die in a feral ghoul buffet. Lovetap? It sounded too svelte.

It comes in its own time, like it was always going to. 

This newest group of raiders is a cut above the rest. This group has a leader who equally distributes stimpaks and knows how to keep a t45 running. 

GD goes howling in the front while Pip climbs up the back and soon enough high caliber bullets are whizzing over GD's head as he knocks a raider so hard he can almost see the soup he is making of their ribs. 

Then Mr. Power Armor decides to be brave. Not a bad calculation. His armor's quality. His gun is maintained. He has every reason to think he can come out on top over a guy who is three inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than he is, wielding a fucking sledgehammer. 

GD tears into the t45 with a vicious grace. Those miserable codder pins in the knees that always sheered at the worst possible moment? THWACK. the hollowball joints in the wrists that were biased toward right handed users? BAM. That tiny tiny crack where there was no seal because you had to be able to take your helmet off to get your ass chewed out? CRACK. 

By the time GD is done, Pip has taken care of everyone else in the little camp and his opponent has long since stopped moving. 

GD looks from the broken husk of the raider in what is left of his power armor to the sledgehammer he is leaning on like a walking stick. 

"Cheerio you got a knife?" 

Pip hands one over without a word and begins collecting the raiders' possessions. GD sits down right next to the corpse in power armor and starts to carve into his sledgehammer's handle. 

Pip comes up behind him with his share of the scrap and glances curiously over his shoulder. 

"I like it," he says with approval. 

"Yeah," GD says as he runs his thumb over the box letters spelling out **John Henry**. "Me too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John Henry is an African American folk hero whose job was hammering a steel drill into rock to make room for explosive fuses, clearing land for the railroad. His penultimate tale involves his declaration that he would beat an electric hammer designed to do his job. He succeeds, but the act costs him his life.


	5. don't eat green snow (gd this means you)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ancient ritual of 'you can't hate me I got you a pressie' enacted in apocalyptic aftermath. Shopping for your buddies still fucking blows.

Pip McElmot does not want to be here.  
  
‘Here’ is the grimy door of what was once 800 Boylston Street. Four days ago it was nothing but a load of rubble blocking a sidewalk. Now Pip can read the sign in looping, flaked golden script.

 _‘St. Francis Chapel Gift Shop & Bookstore.’_  
  
It is a ruin in the middle of a city full of supermutants, scavvers, raiders and ghouls who would all like to take a piece out of The World's Most Reluctant General. It is surrounded by high walls and rubble that gives barely any cover and no efficient nest spots. 

Pip tries the knob. It turns. 

Damn it.  
  
“Why is Tiny Human waiting?”  
  
Finding out about the St. Francis Chapel Gift Shop & Bookstore had been a moment of serendipity. Once Pip decided on a course of action he’d sought out the various traders and shopkeepers in the Commonwealth, hoping any of them might have some idea of what it was he was after.

Daisy had been his saving grace. She’d had catholic parents, and recalled the store where they bought altar candles. 

“I don’t know if there’s anything left,” she’d said to him, and Pip had replied, “We’ll find out.” 

Pip had known he couldn’t clear the rubble himself.   
  
So. Strong.

And Strong hadn’t understood WHY Pip wanted his help clearing rubble in the middle of the city but Pip was the man that GD answered to, and Strong respected GD, so he’d grunted an assent with little protest.   
  
With Strong’s help the door is clear and Sturges had (with some protestation, as ‘I fix guns not buildings!’) declared the ground floor as structurally sound as could be, considering the second floor and roof had fallen in on it.  
  
Pip steels himself, stands aside to make a clear path to the door for the supermutant. Strong is ready for this. He knows the drill- not as well as GD, of course, and he’s even taller than GD is, damn it, but Pip can shoot around him.

What might lurk in the remains of a catholic bookstore in the middle of the ruins of Boston?

A whole lot of fuckin’ nothing.   
  
All the preparation (not, Pip would claim, for ghouls alone, though he feels he is perfectly justified in being worried about them, GD, they’re basically humans with radioactive rabies that should concern anyone stop making fun of me) is pointless. 

There’s nobody in St. Francis Chapel’s gift shop and bookstore. There hasn’t been for a very long time. 

The air is old and heavy and there’s mold creeping in but the shelves are intact. So are most of the products. They perform a sweep before Pip is satisfied and he begins his search. 

It doesn’t take long. By the rusted old register, Pip finds the holy grail, pun almost intended.  
  
She’s about a foot tall, ceramic and hollow. Her glaze is unchipped, her paint vibrant. She gazes peacefully up at the sniper as he lifts her, checks for damage. There is none.  
  
It says something about himself, Pip figures, that he almost considers paying for the statue. Its not like old world money is any use to him anymore except as cloth to weave into mattresses or blankets. He comes to his senses. GD would tell him she’d understand.  
  
She’s the Blessed Mother Mary. Of course she understands.  
  
Pip lays her carefully in the cushioned bag he’d brought, the one he normally uses for his scopes. He’d had an inkling whatever he salvaged would be very breakable.  
  
Strong is disappointed by the lack of blood but Pip lets him blow off steam on some raiders stupid enough to try and ambush them from the remains of a city bus on their way out. He snipes from the ruins of a a coffee shop’s second floor and keeps his bag across his back with its strap tight.

-

“I fucking hate this.”

“I know.”

“No, kid, I mean I really fucking hate this.”

“Then why are you doing it?”

“Because,” GD says as he chisels away another line on the chunk of wood in front of him, “there’s some shit you just need to do.” 

Macready snorts. GD can’t blame him. He’s a born and bred wastelander. Christmas doesn’t mean shit to the scavvers of the Commonwealth or the Capital Wasteland or any other portion of what was once the US. Hell, GD had been amazed that anyone remembered it at all. What they do remember is…piecemeal. 

In the settlements it’s a bit of a different story. Goodneighbor has a block party every December but honestly one could chalk that up to it being Goodneighbor, which will take any excuse for a shitload of chems and booze. Diamond City has a tree made of scrap that Abbott looks after out by the mutfruit patch. Travis has a few records squirreled away for the holidays so at least Jingle Bells outlasted Congress. 

None of it is Christmas, though. It’s all bits and pieces. Junk from a decayed dead world. 

GD puts down another line, watches Macready adjust the sights on the scope in front of him again. He didn’t think he could miss anything like he misses christmas eve mass. The chiming bells, the darkness of the church lit only by a thousand red and white candles. The way time just seemed to stop. 

That was then, though. This is now. Now Macready makes one final adjustment and nods firmly. GD looks down at his newest etch and frowns, adjusting a little.

They’d gone to Quincy for the parts, he and Macready. He’d thought about bringing Hancock, or Nick or even Danse if he could shut his goddamn face for ten seconds but no. 

No, it always had to be Bobby Joe. Because Macready might not understand or give two shits about Christmas but he does know guns, and he hates Gunners, and he loves Pip McElmot. 

They’d run it in a pincher. GD had approached from the southeast, through the marsh. Macready had set up on top of the parking garage, getting a good nest all built. He hadn’t been thrilled with Follow the Rabbit but he’d done a damn fine job, almost as good as Pip. 

GD likes Gunners about as much as Macready does. It was no hardship to mow them down. Lots of idiots with energy rifles thinking if they aimed in the right place that power armor would pop like a busted circuit. To their credit, most suits would. Most suits were not custom built by Corporal Shanders. 

The looks on their faces when he swings John Henry will never not be amazing. 

Once most of them were dead and the rest were running- probably home to the Plaza, and they’d have to deal with that sooner or later- it was a simple matter of picking over the corpses and trunks and duffel bags left to find the good stuff. Then they’d hauled it all home to Sanctuary and after picking through to decide what to sell and what to put in the community pool, it was time to mod. 

Which is finicky, irritating, frankly shitty work and GD has had about enough of it. Modding a gun is not like modding power armor. Macready had made fun of him for it- “how can a guy who builds nuclear-powered battle suits have such trouble with one gun?”- but he’d stuck around to help.

Snipers knows snipers, after all. 

A few more lines, another coat of varnish and some wax. Macready is already muttering over the receiver, something about fifty cals instead of 308s.

The sky is a steely gray. In a few days it will snow. 

-

Christmas Day dawns over the Commonwealth just like any other day. it’s colder, and there’s snow on the ground, but there’s still raiders trying to kill people and Supermutants trying to prove genetic superiority and Danse is still moping around the workshop about that whole not being a real human thing, so honestly? Par the course. 

GD is in Goodneighbor for the weekend, being the mayor’s arm candy and probably high off enough jet to kill a brahmin, so Pip doesn’t have any trouble leaving his present just inside the door of his little shack. 

Mary’ll look nice, he thinks, on the long, low table where GD has quietly been collecting the lost iconography of his dead church. 

When he goes up to his spot- that damn chair on the roof of the house across the street from where he used to live, where he and Nora built the walls that were meant to keep them safe- there’s something waiting for him.

Two somethings, actually.

The first is Bobby, looking a little flushed.

The second is a gun.

It’s a rifle. A scoped sniper rifle, with a hand carved stock. Pip takes a moment to examine the carving and to let Bobby sweat. They’re feathers, he realizes. Peregrine feathers. There’s eyes etched into either side of the barrel. There’s a box of ammo on the seat- fifty cals. Gunner issued. 

He recalls hearing something about Quincy…

“The, ah, finishing touches were GD’s idea,” Bobby says. “But I did all the specs. Merry Christmas?” 

Bobby offers him a slug of whiskey. 

Pip grins and takes the bottle. No doubt Preston is gonna come looking for him eventually- the people of Sanctuary are having their own little party later- but he has time. 

Bobby grins at him, and he grins at Bobby.

“Corvega?” he asks. Music to Pip’s ears.

“Corvega,” he confirms. Bobby stands and kisses him quick before heading for the ladder. 

Merry Christmas indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter establishes the two 'ships' of 222- survivor/macready and survivor/hancock- and various things mentioned will with luck be touched upon later. We're open for suggestions.


	6. Pip Takes A Fucking Holiday, No, I Don't Care About Your Settlement Right Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> pip takes a day off.

Pip decides to take the day off from being 'The General.'

It's not that he doesn't like Preston—on the contrary, Preston is an awesome guy, even if his ideals are pretty big and he doesn't necessarily have the power to pull them off. But Pip has decided to take the day off. He's told GD, so with any luck the big guy will stick close to Sanctuary in case anything happens.

Today, Pip makes his way up to Corvega. It's one of his favorite places to play. Tall place to perch, idiot raiders who can't make it up without tripping the half-dozen or so traps Pip laid on his way up the stairs, sneaking like a spider on a wall. He gets up onto the ledge of the bridge. First, he turns to his left. Lays down, gets his rifle situated. There's a big motherfucker over there in power armor. Pip only wears light armor as a rule; he doesn't like the noise and the weight, he never gets caught.

He's not looking to kill the guy in power armor, oh, no. There are a bunch of ferals, over there in the north of Lexington. Running loose like mad. Pip knows because he propped open the door to the Super Duper Mart and left a trail of raw, rotten meat even GD wouldn't try on his way by. So they're on the prowl already.

Pip lays down on his belly. He catches the raider in sight of his rifle and he waits. Pip waits, and waits, and waits, until he can practically smell the ferals down on the ground beneath him, shambling and grunting and tripping over themselves. Then, and only then, does Pip put his finger on the trigger. Breathe in. Out. Eye at the scope. He can practically see the laser dot on the fucker's head, but Pip doesn't want to kill him. Breathe in, out.

Death by gunshot is too good for these motherfuckers, who killed a group of settlers making their way up to Sanctuary. They had elderly with them. Kids. Ghouls. Nine dead. Death by gunshot is too good for these murderers. Breathe in, out.

They would have made it past the ferals if this motherfucker hadn't dumped buckets of blood and raw meat over them. Only one ghoul made it out. Ennis. He's a good guy, prewar. Got the shakes something fierce. Can't smell meat without heaving. Breathe in, out.

The ferals have figured out the stairs, just like Pip knew they would. They're hunting. Searching. Breathe in, out.

In, then out, out, out.

The silenced shot is a pop in Pip's ear. It hits the mark. Death by gunshot is too good, but a bullet through that meaty shoulder is enough to make him bleed. Bleed fast, bleed a lot. Raiders, Pip has learned, can't smell worth a pinch of piss in a gale of wind.

But ferals can.

Pip watches the motherfucker in power armor get swarmed. He can feel his grin, a filthy rictus on his face. He watches through his scope, chuckles to himself as he watches all the motherfuckers get ripped to goddamn pieces. Blood everywhere. Flesh. Ferals don't need to eat, but they do. Some of them died in the assault. The rest gorge. Pip lets them get their hungry mouthfuls. Watches them like one watches a pride of lions tearing apart a wildebeest. Only then, when their bellies are full and they're slow and lazy, does Pip pop them off.

One at a time, heads explode into that pretty red mist he's gotten so fond of. He liked it in the war, too. Before the bombs dropped Pip had been a sniper and he's still a sniper, one of the best—cryogenically frozen in time until now, when he gets to be as savage as he damned well pleases, instead of listening to the orders of an officer who told him not to shoot for reasons of expediency, because it wasn't possible to kill them just yet, because they had to wait, wait, wait.

Pip is done waiting.

And usually, Pip lets GD take care of things like this. He takes the shot and leaves the rest of the fracas to the big guy and his big hammer. John Henry. It's funny that GD calls his hammer that. It reminds Pip of all these cartoons he used to watch. Larger than life, a man hammering his way through a mountain. GD probably could hammer his way through a mountain. And Pip doesn't mind being the guy who blows the head off the men who try to stop him.

Once the ferals are all dead, Pip repositions himself on the other side of the bridge and watches Corvega. He bought his first car here. He toured the plant a few times. He pops the first raider up top, and works his way down.

Let GD keep his melee, let him rip heads off with Strong, with Hancock, with Nick. Pip will stay up here by himself, rifle in hand. He'll wait. He'll be patient. He's always patient when he wants to make the shot. Peregrine Theodore McElmot, whose parents had been avid birdwatchers and made sure their son knew how to be patient before he went through puberty, always makes his shot. Pip never, ever misses.


	7. follow the rabbit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> GD and Strong go out for a walk and meet some unpleasant fellows, who they take care of in a time honored fashion.

The raider boss- Gamma, stupid name, probably thought it made him sound tough- has a really nice combat rifle.

GD’s a little distracted by it, holding his hands in the air, fingers spread.

Five.

“Do you know how fucking stupid you are?” Gamma asks.

GD drops a finger. Four. “I don’t, actually, but I got a real good feeling you can tell me, bud.”

Beside him Strong growls. He hates this plan. “Easy, big guy,” GD murmurs. The other raiders are all gathering, guns drawn. Lots of pipe pistols. One guy thinks he’s hot shit with a modded ten mil. Gamma’s still got the nicest gun in the place.

“Strolling in here like you own the fucking place, you think I don’t know you? I’m gonna enjoy killing you.”

Three. “Well, Gunther, that’s a real nice sentiment. Good to think people like seeing me.”

“It’s GAMMA you fucking- what are you doing?”

Two. “What?”

“Your fingers you fuckin’ moron! What are you-“

Strong starts to chuckle. They all back up. GD likes that, how they all back up. He likes it a little too much. It’s why he and Strong always go together. One of them needs a cool head. Shame it’s not the human. “Oh, this?” he wiggles his last two fingers, dropping one. One. “Counting down the seconds you got to live, bud.”

“The FUCK kind of-“

The last finger goes down. A closed fist. Zero.

“Bye, Goiter.”

The shot comes from two hundred yards away and is perfect. Of course it is.

Gamma’s head explodes in a thousand shades of red and his buddies, predictably, scramble. GD runs a hand up his back for John Henry and Strong’s already tearing someone’s arms off which is freakin’ amazing.

That night, Pip- freshly divested of the paint and leaves that he’d crouched in for half a day to line up that shot- will bitch at GD about him taking too long, his arm being up a little too high, I almost just clipped his head stay out of my shots you dink. But he’ll smile. GD will, too. He’ll pass off the nice combat rifle and Pip will bitch about its short range but he’ll put it to good use. That’s why he’s the boss.

That’s why GD follows.

It’s a good day in the Commonwealth, and no one is ever going to remember a Raider named Gamma at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Strong and GD are besties for life and Pip still isn't over it.


	8. mr. mcelmot goes to diamond city

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pip and GD have a rousing conversation about baseball and have a run in with one Piper Wright, of Publick Occurrences.

Piper Wright was about ready to claw her way over the hydraulics of the power door and strangle Danny Sullivan with his own socks when she heard someone approaching. Two someones. Three? No gunshots, so whoever they were the security team had let them by without a fight. That in itself is pretty notable. The supermutant colony by the BADTFL had been moving southeast. There’d been talk of a raid for months. 

“Oh, dear, someone should complain to the management. Such a mess!” 

“Holy shit, the entire metropolitan area gets burned into radioactive cheese whiz and that goddamn statue made it?”

“So it would seem.”

“Fuckin’ yankees.” 

“Quite, sir.” 

“Look, we don’t even know if Yankee Stadium made it. Consider that a win.” 

“I gueessss.” 

A plan already half formed Piper turns around. “Hey, you wanna-”she starts, but her words fizzle in bewilderment and surprise. 

There are two men and a Mr. Handy in front of her. One is short and slender, with a quiet dark expression. The other is easily the tallest man she’s ever seen, with unnaturally pale blue eyes and a smile that’s just a bit too wide for comfort. They’re both dressed in road leathers and metal armor. The Mr. Handy is beat up but retains most of his parts, even if he’s twirling his attached tools a little too loosely for her liking. 

The bigger man’s smile gets even wider and therefore even more unnerving. “Hey, half-pint. This the door to paradise?” 

The smaller man rolls his eyes and adjusts the strap on the rifle over his shoulder. “What the large idiot is asking is, is this the way into Diamond City?” 

“Yeah,” Piper says, recovering. “you wanna get in?” 

“That would be handy, half-pint, thanks,” the big guy says. 

The small man sighs deeply and pinches the bridge of his nose. 

“Follow my lead,” Piper tells them. She spins a line about trade and the general store. Danny, bless his stupid little heart, either buys it or gives in to that conscience being a part of DS security hadn’t ripped out of him yet. The door opens and Piper gives the two men a bow before scurrying inside. 

“Piper!” McDonough is waiting. Of course he is. He lays into her in full view of the two newcomers and as aggravating as it is, Piper almost feels vindicated. She’s got him scared and he knows that she knows it. 

“Hey. You, ah, make it a habit to threaten women in this city of yours?” 

It’s the big guy. He’s talking as friendly as he had outside but something about his tone turns Piper’s blood to ice. 

Piper sees McDonough go pale. She looks between him, the big man, and his smaller companion. The small man looks annoyed but not at his larger friend. Instead he is watching McDonough. He is watching the mayor like a feral mongrel watches a limping molerat. 

“Now, that is hardly-“ the mayor starts but Piper beats him to it. 

“Do you support the free press?” she asks. 

The big man doesn’t answer. Instead he looks down at the smaller man, who smiles. 

“I’ve always believed in the freedom of the press,” he says. His Mr. Handy unit begins extolling the praises of the newspaper as McDonough, sensing a storm passing by, welcomes the two men and gives Piper one more blustering huff before disappearing up the stairs and back to the stands. 

Once he’s out of earshot Piper hears the little man sigh. “GD…”

“Like he isn’t asking for it. Figured the bomb’d take care of that but I guess cockroaches bury their asses deep. If I’d known the accountant from Florence Base had a three times great grandson I’d have kicked him in the nuts harder than I did when I found out his name was David.” 

The small man snorts something that’s almost a laugh. “Don’t get us thrown out before we find what we’re looking for.” 

“Don’t you worry, Pip. I’ll get us thrown out exactly five minutes after we find what we’re looking for, swear on the tomb of Jesus Christ and my mama’s easter brunch. Unless I find a decent bar in this place. Then maybe it’ll take a little longer.” 

“That’s right white of you.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“You alright?” the small man- Pip- is addressing Piper. She nods. “A big old Diamond City welcome from the mayor, don’t you feel special?” she asks. 

Pip chuckles. “Not really.”

“Why are you here, if not to trade?” Piper asks, because asking questions she shouldn’t ask is sort of her profession and what the hell, the big guy- GD- had been willing to assault McDonough for her, so these guys can’t be entirely creeps. 

GD and Pip exchange a quick look. 

It’s Pip who says, “We’re looking for someone.”

Oh, no. Piper sighs. “Well don’t go asking Diamond City Security for help. They’d rather sweep disappearances under the rug.” She turns to head towards the stairs, hesitates. “But..hey. Down in the market, there are signs. Neon pink ones. Follow them and they’ll lead to someone who can help.” 

Nick can pay her back for the lead later, assuming this story doesn’t end like so many of his cases do. 

Piper looks at the two men and their robot and she really, really hopes there’s a happy ending. 

“I’ve got to go to the office, Blue,” she says to Pip, “but why don’t the two of you stop by later? Got an idea for a fresh article, you’d be great for it.” 

She doesn’t give them time to respond before she hurries up the steps. She needs to see Nat, needs to check the locks, needs to assess the amount of ammo she has on hand. There are letters to the editor to ignore, articles to proofread, and leads to follow up on. 

She figures she’ll see Pip and GD again soon, though.

Real soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are a couple of statues outside of Fenway Park but none match the statue that is found as you approach Diamond City. For humor reasons I have decided that statue to be of Babe Ruth, whose trade to the Yankees began the world series dryspell that Red Sox fans began calling the Curse of the Bambino. If you know more about these statues than I do, rest assured, I don't care.
> 
> 'That's right white of you' is an expression my grandmother used as a sarcastic way of calling someone's actions decent.


	9. shot heard 'round the world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ranger Specialist McElmot and Corporal Shanders meet Paladin Danse of the Brotherhood of Steel. They are not impressed.

The message repeating on AF95 hadn't sounded good but GD knew they were in the shit when he saw the explosion. 

It was a grenade- thrown from inside a standard security perimeter around the Cambridge station, prewar. One grenade, not three in a staggered scatter for max area. One grenade, thrown _directly_ at the remains of a nuke powered tanker that was easily within fifteen feet of the goddamn wall. 

So whoever was on the other side of this makeshift barrier was either a fucking moron or had men down or both. 

GD's money was on both. 

"Go," Pip said, stopping at the base of what had once been a two story shop. "I'll cover." He started hammering on the wood blocking the door with the butt of his rifle and by the time GD acknowledged him he'd already disappeared inside, intent on the rickety stairs leading up to the nearest crackable window. 

GD, as had steadily become his wont in the Commonwealth, hefted his hammer and charged in the last thirty feet. 

He barely made it behind the barrier before the truck went and he ducked against the concrete barricades, swearing up a storm as flaming steel plates broke into melting projectiles. When he took a moment to survey he kept right on swearing. 

Three. Three fuckin' people. No wait, make that two of any use- one was clearly injured, huddled against the side of the building. The two who were up- one in a T60 suit with no helmet, the other in a uniform GD didn't know- were using the same energy rifles as the gunners, and between them there wasn't enough sense to aim. 

Which was goddamn unfortunate, because they were being swarmed by ghouls. 

GD heard a shot ring out and watched a feral go down on the upper walk. He was silently thankful that Pip had gone high- the sniper hated feral ghouls. He hadn't told GD why and GD had yet to ask. Rule number one, you don't ask your sniper cover invasive questions about shit they don't like. 

Rule number two, you don't leave _three people_ to defend an eight man perimeter. 

GD stood up and swung. The head of his hammer obliterated the ghoul it caught, thus marking him as Food Of Interest. The fight was on. 

With the pop of Pip's gun following him around GD began running in a staggered figure eight. Ghouls joining the chase had their legs and arms crushed, those fast enough to catch up to him having to contend with the thick leather and metal of his armor. Everyone in the middle was fodder for the Eye in the Sky and his steady trigger finger. 

Maybe T60 and his buddies shot some; GD didn't care enough to pay attention. He buried his hammer in the last ghoul with something like a snarl, and he had to do a good shake to dislodge it. 

GD made a quick cross in the general direction of the corpses scattered around the perimeter, then he turned to face Cambridge's Worst Defenders. "Just what the fuck?" He asked T60. 

"Thank you for the assist, civilian," the man said. He had a thousand yard stare, a fourth pot black voice, and the stupidest goddamn slipcap GD had ever seen. "What's your business here?" 

"Business." GD said flatly, leaning on John Henry. "You put out an all points bulletin begging for backup and you ask me what my fuckin business here is, guy? Better question. What's your business here?" 

There was a soft step by the farthest barrier and GD watched T60 look up, lifting his rifle. 

"Hey. Big guy. Eyes on me. You don't worry about him. You tell me what three people were hoping to do while outgunned, outmanned and outghouled." 

If he went for Pip GD was gonna take him out at the knees. The caps on the T60 had always been brittle. He hadn't shown any indication towards melee efficiency with his armor. It'd be like slipping the track off a really aggravating tank.

"Paladin?" The uniformed soldier who wasn't beat to shit- a lady- had her gun trained on GD. Good girl. Might even have gotten a shot off if Pip didn't already have her in his sights. 

"Its alright, Scribe," T60 said. He didn't sound alright. "We're Brotherhood of Steel. I'm Paladin Danse. The two behind me are Knight Rhys and Scribe Haylen." 

Brotherhood. Knight. _Paladin._ GD already didn't like this. "Okay. What's this Brotherhood doing in Cambridge?" 

The thousand yard stare went up a watt or two. "That's not your business." 

"Look, Paladin, your little radio broadcast could have gotten someone less prepared killed. You dragged in every feral in the metro area and left your flank so fuckin open I could have crashed a vertibird through it. And that was BEFORE one of you dumb motherfuckers threw a goddamn grenade at the rolling nuke outside this too big, too open, begging for a frontal assault perimeter that some shit for brains decided to retrofit so what. Are. You. Doing. Here?" 

GD suspected people didn't talk to Paladin Danse like this, if the way his eyes bugged a little was any indication. 

"Recon," he finally said. 

"Recon. You hear that, Fitty, he's doing recon." 

Pip was gonna give him hell for the name later, he was sure, but this whole situation was making alarm bells screech like air raid sirens. Paladin Danse of the Brotherhood of Steel was not getting the name of GD's Eye in the Sky. 

Apparently Pip agreed because he said, "Hell of a place for recon, John." 

"Our travel through the Commonwealth has been..hostile," Danse said. 

"With your dick wavin' around like that?" GD asked, aghast. "Nooo." 

"Paladin," the scribe said again and GD could see that the Knight was trying to stand up. He didn't look good. 

"I do not have time to listen to scavver nonsense," Danse said. GD wondered if he'd ever said the word scavver out loud before. He didn't seem sure what to do with the syllables. "If you intend to offer no further aid, civilian, our business is concluded." 

GD looked him up and down. 

"Give you this one for free, Dancey. Next time you throw a grenade," GD said, "try to aim OVER the nuke powered car." 

"Shut the hell up," the Knight said, which might have been more intimidating if he wasn't the color of the two hundred year old cheese under glass that Trudy kept at the Drumline Diner as a novelty item. 

"It'll be a cold day in hell, spaceman," GD said. He hefted John Henry onto his shoulder and gave the frowning Paladin Danse a mock salute. "Welcome to to the Commonwealth, flatlander." 

He marched out of the perimeter, whistling. When Pip came up beside him the smaller man said, "You don't go for the throat so soon." 

"They pissed me off," GD said. 

"Okay. Why?" 

GD shook his head. "Don't know. Equipment was fucked. A REAL cherry T60- no helmet? Energy rifles but only one grenade? Three people to hold an eight man minimum prewar barricade? No minefield, no clearing the potential ordinance, and all soldiers boots on the ground? Did you see any eyes in the sky for them?" 

Pip shook his head. "Vertibird on the roof was clean. All the windows were dark." 

"That wasn't a recon team. That was a heavy strike team retrofitted to recon and doing a piss poor job of it." 

Pip hummed as they took a side alley. "You heard anyone mention a Brotherhood?" He asked. 

"Not fuckin one," GD replied. "You don't recon an area you know. And not one of 'em talked right." 

The Commonwealth accent and all its delightful and profane variations had survived nuclear fallout. Danse and his cheer squad hadn't sounded local. 

"So Brotherhood ain't from around here," Pip concluded. GD held aside an armful of bramble while Pip scanned the area; a nod and he moved forward. 

"You up for a detour to Diamond City?" GD asked. 

"You wanna talk to Nick," Pip said. 

"Either tin man or half pint. Of of 'em'll know something. I don't like the idea of leaving Paladin Danse of the Brotherhood of Steel to his own devices." 

"Neither do I," Pip murmured. "Hey. GD. What comes after the button?" 

"The boom," GD said grimly. The two men disappeared into the weaving ruin of cars on the highway, headed southwest as quickly as they dared. The military frequency was finally dead air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FUCK the Brotherhood of Steel.
> 
> Fitty- a slurring of Fifty- was sometimes used as a nickname for snipers during the Vietnam war. 
> 
> While I assigned GD a real army rank basically the moment I began to play him, my sibling's Pip McElmot is a bit more fluid. For the purposes of this fic, Pip is an Army Ranger, a long range specialist.


	10. let fools do good and fair men call for grace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lone GD Shanders takes a trip up Trinity Tower and appreciates some literature.
> 
> Chapter warnings for a brief mention of child abuse.

Supermutants are big and powerful but they die just like men, which is why GD figures they're just proof that humanity doesn't so much advance as it shuffles to the left. 

He'd been on his way to Goodneighbor when he'd picked up the Trinity signal. What with the description of the sitrep and the repetition he'd figured this Rex Goodman was long dead, but what the fuck, GD had time. 

He's alone- Pip is somewhere south with the Kid, looking for a rifle. 

"Only you," he'd said to Pip, "would go all the fuckin' way past Quincy for a rifle." 

Pip had flipped him the bird and off they'd gone. This trip to Goodneighbor was supposed to be a little vacation for GD in the meantime. Sanctuary was defended, the last batches of Raiders had been cleared out of Corvega and the federal stockpile, and he had a sack full of pilfered jet and a goddamn handsome ghoul waiting to shower it on. 

Hancock would have to wait. 

GD ascends the tower like a man possessed. Each tight corner and rusted out hallway provides more of the green titans who have come to terrorize so much of the Commonwealth. One- calls himself Fist- tries talking smack on what loudspeakers still remain. 

GD figures he should be afraid of them. He's seen the meat bags, after all. 

He's not. 

Which probably means he's fucked in the head and honestly GD knew that when he was fourteen and beat the shit out of his first David- David Poleski, hospitalized with a cracked rib and broken cheekbone. Once his mother had finished praying and his father finished with the belt he'd expected to feel fear or remorse or. Or something. 

Instead, GD only felt then what he feels now, stepping over the remanants of Fist may he rest in peace who, like the rest of them, never expected a sledgehammer to the face. 

Satisfaction. 

GD is surprised as anything to find that the man who hijacked the trinity signal is still alive. He is equally surprised to find Rex Goodman sharing his cage with a supermutant. 

Strong doesn't look any different from the other stretched green giants GD has been fighting. Same big egg shaped head, same cauliflower ears like he'd boxed three rounds too many. 

But he's interested in Shakespeare, which is new. Or at least that line about milk. GD was never huge into MacBeth. He'd always preferred Titus Andronicus. Strong is determined to find the milk of human kindness and as his brothers are disinclined to this lactic adventure, he presents a new and interesting opportunity. 

"Hey, big guy," GD says because he might be a bit gung ho but he ain't _stupid,_ "can you help us out of here?" 

Strong agrees. They use the outer-mounted elevator which shows something like good sense. The supermutants GD missed are kinda pissed about this whole one man invasion thing which is funny because they were definitely using Rex's mayday to lure in passersby, so statistically a maniac like GD was bound to stroll in sooner or later.

Anyway they're mad as mud hornets who were just introduced to a lawn mower so the descent gets a little hairy for a bit. Rex is a good sport, at least, doing his best with a pipe pistol. Its hard to beat heads in with a sledgehammer when said heads are stationary and the hammerer is on an open elevator. GD switches to frag grenades. 

Strong doesn't seem too broken up about fighting his brothers. Hell he seems excited to do it. GD keeps an eye on him as they descend. He'd known soldiers who didn't care who they fought, as long as they fought _somebody._ Strong doesn't strike him as one of those. Strong is just- strong. Impatient. A man who has seen the shadows outside the cave. 

They make it with some more Shakespeare and bullets. In the ruined lobby of the remains of Trinity Tower, Rex Goodman makes his exit. GD wishes him well. Its not easy to be a fellow simultaniously that egotistical and that sincere. They are a rare breed. 

This leaves Strong. 

And, well. He'd helped. He hasn't tried to eat GD yet. He's a supermutant which means he won't fall over in a moderate radstorm. He's really fucking stuck on this milk thing which won't help him fit in with other supermutants, presuming they don't connect him with the downfall of Trinity Tower. 

GD doesn't break promises, when he can help it. 

"Now I don't know how we're gonna find the milk of human kindness, Big Guy," he warns as he clears the last of the gore from the spike on John Henry's backside. "but I do know that I've got a prior engagment in Goodneighbor. You ever been?" 

"Was there with brothers. Tried to break walls. Got shot." 

GD chuckles, and he's gratified to see something like a smile cross the gash of Strong's mouth. "Yeah. Its a hell of a town. You be cool, and stick with me. We'll get you inside and set up right." 

Hancock is gonna love this. Or think GD's lost it. Depending on the high he's riding, maybe both. Daisy'll be good to Strong, GD knows he can count on her. Hell, Kleo too, as long as Strong keeps his mouth shut about her being an assaultron. They should talk about that... 

GD takes off into the haze of the afternoon, Strong following behind. 

"Hey," GD says, "did Rex only recite Shakespeare?" 

Strong grunts. 

"Okay. Okay, I'm gonna run something by you. You'll like it, its all about humans dyin'. 'And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who was sitting on the horse-'" 

GD steps lively through the dust of Boston, reciting Armageddon to a Supermutant. He thinks with a wicked glee as they come into view of Goodneighbor's warm neon, _Pip is gonna kill me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GD is reciting the beginning of Revelations 19-21. In case no one was paying attention, GD is the world's worst Catholic.
> 
> Technically Gunner Plaza (where you find the gauss rifle prototype, if you bought that content) is about the same distance south as Quincy. Shh.
> 
> GD's companion nicknames, a guide:  
> Piper- Half Pint  
> Nick Valentine- Tin Man  
> MacReady- the Kid  
> Strong- Big Guy
> 
> Further bulletins as nicknames warrent.


End file.
